Why do people still use windows xp?

[smeek14]

Why do so many people (especially companies? Still use it? I mean it's 14 years old and unsupported.

[The Official Czex]

Companies (and the US military) use XP for compatibility with older programs that they still use. 

 

Sometimes the switch to a newer OS is difficult for companies with thousands of employees.

[TubsAlwaysWins]

Why do so many people (especially companies? Still use it? I mean it's 14 years old and unsupported.

1. Their Potatos cant run anything else

2. They don't want to buy more windows licenses because they are expensive.

(Just my opinions)

[Slyhawk]

expensive to buy new licences, some people might not be tech savy enough to upgrade or cheap and say if it aint broke why fix it.  

[DigitalHermit]

Because everything works as it should...

[NannerBeans]

I'm still on Windows 7 for all of my machines lol

[Tmt97]

One time I met a guy who said his job is helping companies transition from windows xp to a newer OS. My response was "So you do charitable work, then?"

[z123killer]

I'm still on Windows 7 for all of my machines lol

he said windows XP. And there is nothing wrong with staying on windows 7 I still like it.

[z123killer]

For companies I think it's because of it's support to older programs they have. And for individuals I think they don't know how to upgrade, got used to the interface and don't want ot upgrade, or don't want to waste money on another license

[Dukanater]

some times you just dont need to upgrade i have a machine at work i use that has windows 98 on it but for what it does its perfect.

[NannerBeans]

he said windows XP. And there is nothing wrong with staying on windows 7 I still like it.

Yes but I was using it as a comparison of old OS. 7 came out in 2009. 

[BrightCandle]

Why do people still use Windows 7 or Windows 8 when Windows 10 is out? Its a lot of reasons, not all of them are really valid but there are good reasons to stick with the older software even past its supported date.

[Gazereths]

There was a news story late last year about a French airport, Orlay I believe, that still uses windows 3.1 as a base for their air traffic control and it crashed. Look it up,not kidding.

[Azgoth 2]

Because changing over central infrastructure is hard and expensive.  There's the license fee associated with upgrading to a newer version of Windows, which can be quite significant.  There's also the fact hat a lot of software these companies use is configured to run on XP, and won't run well on much else (or not as well).  Then there's the cost associated with switching over any such critical system: you have to re-train employees and IT, shift over all your mission-critical software/data/etc or switch to new software, and you have to deal with a potential dip in productivity as everyone learns their way around a new OS in the context of using it for work.  And since all of that represents a dip in profits, companies are reticent to make any such changes except where absolutely critical.

 

As for the military, the cost of licenses probably still applies, but replace "profit" with "operational effectiveness" in the second half of the above.  Also, that would be part of the trend of "The US govenrment always uses ancient technology".  E.g., Veterans Affairs still scheduled a lot of its medical stuff using plain-old MS DOS.  NASA still has giant, 8-inch floppies they need to use on a regular basis, and sent the space shuttles into space using a bloody 8086 processor (all the way up until just recently).  That might be because government is (almost by design) inefficient and bad at generally keeping up with the times.  Plus, in the government, every institutional change requires a whole host of paperwork and someones to approve that paperwork, and review the approval, and approve the approval's request for further review by a committee, etc, so it all just gets super bogged down.

 

And all that aside, a lot of companies have huge numbers of machines that would need to be converted, and just the logistics of doing that is a giant headache.  It doesn't help that a lot of companies in less tech-oriented fields probably don't have a particularly deep understanding of why they might want to switch over, at least as regards the people who would be making that decision, so they just don't have the impetus anyways.  "It works, doesn't it?  So why bother trying to change it?"  (Whether the change would be better doesn't matter--if it isn't broke don't fix (or bother upgrading) it).

[Zimon]

-snip-

Exactly that.

Some companys tend to keep their crappy old stuff until it breaks, because what could possibly go wrong? 

Six weeks ago i had a call from a customer who´s old linux server broke down... Physical machine, from around 2006, ran pretty much 24/7 -> dead NIC, dead raid controller, the fans made a weird clicking noise...

That guy was pretty happy when his crap was fixed, and instantly ordered a conversion to a virtual machine because that thing was somewhat critical for the money income...

I asked him why he didn´t switch over earlier -> because it´s too expensive... yeah, because if i hadn´t been able to fix that thing it would not have become expensive :rolleyes: